In the Cities of Coin and Spice (The Orphan's Tales, #2)

by Catherynne M. Valente

The science of innocence is complex and technical—I shall not worry your little ears with such talk. Suffice it to say the hymen is irrelevant, as irrelevant to us as trousers. The word innocent means without harm—did you know? Your mother ought to have taught you what a dictionary was. There is some debate, when unicorns gather, as to what, exactly, the definition ought to be: one who has not been harmed, or one who has done no harm.

Ha! Let us have none of that. Do not sing of us. We do not want your songs. We will sing, and you will listen.

But I had to dress him up in ribbons and hats—folk don’t believe it’s a tamed beast if it doesn’t have the right costume. All tamed things are made a bit ridiculous in the process, you know.”

I did not mind the time, or the distance. That is what an education means.

“This is still my story,” said the girl, drawing away. “My last story. It is not yours simply because it sits in your mouth awhile.”

She threw up her hands like pennies when I fiddled, but once, just once, she held her hands in the freezing well water for hours and hours, and then, running to the sea and back again, brought me in her blue and shaking fingers one perfect shard of foam.

She followed until the ship wrecked itself, for if one watches a vessel long enough, one is surely to witness catastrophe sooner or later. And from the waves she pulled a single sailor, whose eyes were properly blue. Being a fish, she did not moon over his handsome features for too long before fixing her mouth to his throat and taking her supper. We are practical creatures, who live on the sea, and know that serendipitous food is to be savored, for it may not come again.

I suppose you cannot blame them; they are not the only orphans who have told themselves that if they make up the house very nicely, Mother will come home.

The mouse looked doubtful. “I have heard that in the world outside, it is easy to become Stepped Upon, or Swatted with a Broom. We wish to be bright! We wish to be bright and great, so that no one may Step Upon us, or do anything to us with Brooms!”

“But if this is your wish, I shall do what I must—and in this way no one will be able to say I was not the first, that I was not the finest and first of all Djinn! Darling Lem. Good boy. She will be safe, I promise. But this is your last wish.” Lem frowned, his eyes bleary and dim. “Why? Because I have had three? I have heard this is a law.” “No, because I find you tiresome. Go away.”

“Perhaps,” the girl said. “There is always a moment when stories end, a moment when everything is blue and black and silent, and the teller does not want to believe it is over, and the listener does not, and so they both hold their breath and hope fervently as pilgrims that it is not over, that there are more tales to come, more and more, fitted together like a long chain coiled in the hand. They hold their breath; the trees hold theirs, the air and the ice and the wood and the Gate. But no breath can be held forever, and all tales end.” The girl opened her eyes. “Even mine.”